


Like the Roses Want the Rain

by katajainen



Series: Well Met [2]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Backstory, Dorks in Love, F/F, Female Bilbo Baggins, Female Bilbo Baggins/Female Thorin Oakenshield, Female Thorin Oakenshield, Festivals, Fluff, Folk Dancing, Folk Music, I look it up as I go along and make up the rest, Lake-town, Made-up folklore, Meeting the Parents, Mini Roadtrip, New Relationship, Rule 63, Semi-imaginary Scotland, Snogging, Storytelling, The rating is for the one tiny tastefully naughty bit in ch 3, Whirlwind Romance, Worldbuilding, meddling nephews
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-07-28 17:10:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16246127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katajainen/pseuds/katajainen
Summary: She had never been to Esgaroth, but when Thorin said they had room in the car, she couldn't have possibly said no.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very self-indulgent direct continuation to [Well Met On A Rainy Day](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11952480), simply because I love that verse. (Some bits here will probably make a lot more sense if you read that one first.)
> 
> And this was supposed to be a part of aquileaofthelonelymountain's Bagginshield summer event, but what do you know, it's October already *sweats* The original prompt was 'summer festival', but this sort of whizzed merrily past that and quadrupled in length...
> 
> (The title is from the Bon Jovi song 'In These Arms', because I first heard it at an impressionable age and still am a sap like that.)
> 
> Thanks once again to Saraste for the beta and patience ♥

Ravenhill had left Hobbiton-by-the-Water on a refreshingly rain-chilled Saturday morning exactly one week ago.

Bilbo turned the business card in her hands, rubbing at the corners until they turned soft and round. She had saved Thorin’s number on her phone, but had not called – and neither had she. Bilbo’s younger self, who had never been what you’d call a groupie, would have laughed at her, then chided her for dwelling overmuch on one night, lovely as it had been. But Bilbo today, with both of her feet firmly planted in middle age, thought she was being a coward and a fool.

Because she knew how rare and precious it was to have any single encounter leave a memory as strong as this. That she could close her eyes, and find herself once more at the doorstep, kissing Thorin in the dark, with the rain falling in sheets around them, and recall the feel of her strong-fingered musician’s hands, string-callused fingertips catching on her skin, making her giggle and gasp. And Thorin’s deep melodious laugh when they had curled up under the blankets afterwards, sated, yet too excited to sleep, trading soft easy words about everything and nothing as water thrummed on the windowpanes and the single lamp cast the room into a warm comfortable twilight.

A week was not yet too long. Nor too soon. She set the card onto the nightstand, and her phone on top of it. She would call her in the morning.

Later, when she startled awake in a darkened room, Bilbo couldn’t tell at first what exactly had woken her. At her left, the screen of her phone had lit up. A message chime, then. She frowned at the time: 1.43 AM. Anyone with a real emergency would surely have called, wouldn’t they?

She tapped at the message icon, and was still staring at the photo when the chime sounded again. The image was blurry, and badly lighted, but there was no mistaking Thorin’s profile. There was also no doubt she was fast asleep at her desk, with her headphones still on and her head pillowed on her arms, the glow of the screen casting her features in pale blue relief.

_third time this week. pls come and save her from herself!_

Bilbo read it again, before her sleep-muddled brain fired out the obvious conclusion.

 _I don’t care if this is Fili or Kili,_ she typed quickly, _but if you don’t wake her up this instant so she can sleep in a proper bed, I swear you will be sorry._

In reply, she got first a whooping emoji, then one looking doubtful.

_U wouldn’t tell us to wake a sleeping bear, would you?_

_No. I’m telling you to go and wake your aunt. Move!_

There was no immediate reply to this. The screen darkened into power save while Bilbo sat on the edge of the bed, willing her eyes to stay open and debating with herself whether or not she should go back to sleep. Then the phone chimed again.

 _Thank you_ , she read. _I’ll call you in the morning._ Then, a moment later, when she was still smiling to herself, a single red heart.

~*~

‘I’m sorry they woke you,’ was the first thing Thorin said after Bilbo picked up the call.

‘Not at all,’ Bilbo replied, and set down her teacup. ‘I’m still on holiday, after all.’

‘You are? Good; because I meant to ask if you had any plans for the next weekend.’

‘Nothing worth mentioning– I take it you have a suggestion?’ Bilbo took a fortifying sip of her tea, but even strong and sweet, it did nothing for the sudden swarm of butterflies in her stomach.

‘I do,’ Thorin said. ‘Have you ever been to Esgaroth?’

‘You would have to first tell me where it is, so probably not. Sounds like someplace up north, if I’d have to guess, though.’

‘You’d guess right. Dwalin and I grew up around there.’

‘In that case, a definite no; I’ve never been above Carlisle.’

‘Would you like to change that? We're heading up for the festival, and there’s room in the car.’

‘A festival?’

‘A folk music festival. There’s dancing, as well, and a market, but nothing too grand. I’m giving a harp workshop on Saturday.’

‘A workshop? Is that why you’ve been busy?’

‘I’d hardly call it busy.’ There was a pause, and Bilbo imagined Thorin ruffling the hair at the back of her head, or twisting the ends of her hair around one finger, much as one might have done with a telephone cord, back in the day. ‘To be honest, I think I forgot I’m not as young as I used to be.’ Bilbo caught a touch of laughter in her voice. ‘Getting back to work straight from a tour was harder than I remembered.’

‘Well, you did look a bit knackered last night.’ Bilbo couldn’t help smiling, herself. ‘If you keep that up, I might insist on driving, lest you fall asleep at the wheel.’

Thorin laughed softly. ‘Better if you don’t. The old bandwagon is a bit special.’

~*~

The van Thorin had driven the first time they met had been a sensible navy blue; the VW camper parked at Bilbo’s front door was the vivid colour of summer sky, but otherwise unremarkable. When looked from up front, that is. Bilbo pushed her duffel bag under the backseat, then hopped back out to take another look. With both the side doors closed, the effect was certainly… artistic.

There was perhaps two inches of of plain blue below the windows. The rest of the vehicle, starting from the front door, and ending with the the back bumpers, was decorated with a liberal hand – literally, since Bilbo could easily spot several small handprints among the rainbow-coloured tapestry where multi-limbed beasts marched and crawled in a fearsome parade, partly on top of each other, their shapes blithely disregarding the mundane divisions of mammal and reptile and fish. The rare humanoid figures were topped by horned skulls twisted enough to make Hieronymus Bosch proud (or perhaps, Bilbo thought, they were helmets), and brandished weapons that seemed to consist of more jagged edges than blade.

And set against this cavalcade of horrors, there was an army. Tiny warriors, but fierce, their beards and spiked hair painted an improbable electric blue, armed with fearsome axes and swords and bows, and standing as proud as any hunter immortalized  in the Lascaux caves.

‘That’s mine,’ said a young voice behind her, and Kili leaned over her shoulder to point at a half-obscured green handprint.

‘And that’s mine,’ said Fili, indicating a bright red print, slightly larger than the other, but not by much.

‘Dis wouldn’t hear of painting it over.’ And now that Thorin pointed it out, Bilbo could see that what little of the original background colour remained was a slightly different shade of blue than the rest of the van. ‘Not one of my brother’s better ideas, letting these two at the paints.’ But beneath the words, her voice was warm, and Bilbo couldn’t help smiling.

‘I like it,’ she said. ‘You can be sure it’s unique.’

‘Quite,’ Thorin said drily. ‘Do you want to ride at the front or at the back?’

‘If you’ll be driving? At the front – with a map.’

‘I assure you I would know the way in my sleep.’

‘You can hardly fault me for wanting to make sure.’

'Watch that mouth; I might tell you to ride at the back,' Thorin huffed.

'And here was I thinking I was invited for the pleasure of my company,' Bilbo quipped and leaned back against Thorin’s chest, tilting her head to look up at the taller woman. 'Peace, Thorin, I'd like nothing better than to ride at the front with you.'

Thorin dipped her head to brush her lips against her temple. 'You can have the map, too,' she conceded. 'You like them anyway.'

Bilbo smiled. 'Always, when it’s somewhere I've never been before.’ She pulled the passenger door open, and couldn't help the squeal of delight. 'Thorin – please tell me this thing still works!'

'The car? I hope so.'

'No, silly – the cassette deck! It’s not making tape spaghetti or anything?'

'Not that I know of–'

'Splendid! I won't be a moment!'

She dashed back inside, and after a good ten minutes spent rummaging at the back of the closet, emerged with a triumphant 'Ha!', holding a shoebox that had anything but shoes in it. She paused at the front door, box under one arm, the keys in her hand, and did a final mental tally. She'd taken out the rubbish and the hob was cold. All the lights were out. The garden could look after itself for a few days, and Bell from next door would come and feed Gollum.

Speak of the devil, though – where was the cat? Bilbo backtracked and peered under the sofa, then checked behind the armchairs with same result. Nothing. 'Silly creature,' she muttered under her breath. She eventually found Gollum wedged flat between the washing machine and the wall, and thus checked off the last item from her list. 'You behave yourself while I'm gone,' she said in farewell, and was met with a distinctly unimpressed pale green stare. She shrugged. Gollum had been with her for the better part of a decade now, and it had hardly been a kitten when she found it, so it certainly was too old to stop being particular about who fed it.

Back at the van, she passed the shoebox to the backseat. ‘Kids pick first,’ she said without thinking, an echo of her own mother or any of her aunts on family road trips.

There was a too long silence. ‘What? One would think you’ve never seen cassette tapes before.’

‘We have… only– Thin Lizzy, Bilbo? _And_ Bon Jovi?’

‘Oh that!’ she giggled. ‘Well, I’m sure there’s some Clannad in there, too.’

‘They think they’re the first to ever have eclectic tastes,’ Thorin stage-whispered into her ear, provoking more giggles.

They started the drive up north with – quite predictably – Rainbow. The weather was excellent: clear, but not yet too hot. Then again, it was not yet eight in the morning, and Bilbo hadn’t bothered to ask when Thorin and the lads had set out – the impression she had got from the youngsters was clear enough, and it was ‘too damn early’. By the time she flipped the tape, there was no sound at all from the backseat. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Fili flicking intently through his phone, Kili fast asleep beside him, dark head pillowed on his brother’s shoulder. Appropriate, she thought, that ‘The Street of Dreams’ should come up next.

‘I heard him crawling home past 3 am last night,’ Thorin remarked drily.

‘Well, surely you never did anything like that, did you?’

‘You would need to prove it.’ Thorin’s eyes were firmly on the road, but her lips quirked slightly up at the corners.

‘Careful. I might need to find ways to make you confess all your youthful follies.’

‘Watch me quake in my boots. And what about the foibles of middle age, hmm?’

‘Such as?’

‘Driving across the country with three virtual strangers to see a music festival.’

‘I assure you I will do no such thing.’

‘Curious. Because you seem to be in the bandwagon with us.’

‘With you, yes,’ she rested her hand on Thorin’s bare forearm, warm and sun-browned against her own paler skin. ‘Not strangers.’

And she wished, oh how she wished, that she would never grow used to that smile, because then she could hold forever onto the bright sparkling warmth that now blossomed within her chest.

~*~

Many miles and hours later the M6 climbed up into the hilly country of Cumbria, and the sky opened above them, high and pale with a few wind-scattered wisps of cloud.

'Would you mind?' Thorin asked and pointed at the now-silent player.

'Anything special you’d like?'

'You said you had Clannad somewhere?'

Bilbo popped _Macalla_ into the player, and saw Thorin smile as the opening chords rang out. 'Perfect, thank you.' Still smiling she began to hum along, but it wasn't until a few songs into the album that Bilbo could make out any words. And when she did, she couldn't help giggling.

'I’m sorry, Thorin,' she managed. 'But this one, really?'

' _I've got a notion_ ,' Thorin launched into the refrain, pitch-perfect and grinning, ' _I might as well be closer to your heart_ ,' she crooned, leaning into her space. ' _It's out in the open / I might as well be closer to your heart..._ '

‘Oi! Eyes on the road, you silly!’ Bilbo protested, breathless with laughter, cheeks burning with sudden warmth as Thorin proceeded to serenade the rest of the song to her. ‘I don’t know,’ she said after a while, ‘I think I took you for a more of a “Caislean Óir” kind of person.’

‘Hmm?’

‘Well, you know, golden castles and kingdoms in the sun…’ she trailed off, shaking her head slightly. ‘No, that’s not right, forget I said anything.’

‘No– that’s what it says, more or less. You speak Irish?’

‘“Speaking” might be flattering it.’ Bilbo paused for a moment. ‘Well– I was twelve, and I wanted to know what the lyrics said. It’s not like I could Google for a translation, back then. A friend of my mother’s from the University taught me some.’

‘They must have meant a lot you, then, those songs,’ Thorin said quietly, ‘to be worth the effort.’

‘They did, as things do when you’re young. It was– please don’t laugh– to me Irish was like this mystical, this fairy-ring language, much fancier than Latin, anyway– I told you not to laugh!’

‘I’m not.’

‘I can see you holding it in,’ BIlbo huffed. ‘In any case, I was a very strange kid.’

‘Perhaps not stranger than some,’ Thorin said with a ghost of a smile. ‘Shall I tell you what I got up to when I was twelve? Since we’re trading dirty secrets.’

‘Deal.’

‘For one, I loved to read historical romances.’ She stopped, stealing a look at Bilbo, as if for any signs of mirth, but finding none, went on. ‘And so I got it into my head to learn fencing. My father called it expensive nonsense, and wouldn’t hear of it. So saved up the fees on my own. It was an hour and a half in the bus either way, for a class of 45 minutes. But it felt well worth it at the time.’

‘“Well worth it” – bah! Don’t let her fool you, Bilbo!’ Kili interjected from the back, and Bilbo had not realized he was awake. ‘Ask her to show you the medals sometime.’

Bilbo glanced askance at Thorin, who merely shrugged. ‘I’m sure I still have them somewhere. It was a long time ago.’

‘A handful from every year she was in the cadet series,’ Kili went on, ‘regional, national, international, you name it. Same for juniors.’

‘Really? But that’s quite something, Thorin.’ But the admiration in her voice died upon seeing how the other woman’s expression had closed up. ‘What happened?’ she asked.

‘I quit,’Thorin said plainly. ‘I haven’t touched a foil since the year I first went down south. There’s a time for everything, and its time was done.’ Bilbo made to speak, but she beat her to it. ‘And now I reckon it’s time we find someplace to stop for lunch, before the young ones start gnawing at the upholstery. We had to replace all the trims when Kili was done teething,’ she added in stage-whisper.

‘I admit to nothing!’

‘Unfortunately I have photographic evidence,’ Thorin deadpanned, and Bilbo couldn’t help smiling at the resulting groan from the back.

They stopped for a good long lunch break some twenty miles before Carlisle, at a small place called Penrith. Bilbo had broiled trout with lemon butter, and some quite excellent cider. Feeling pleasantly full and slightly fuzzy at the edges, she didn’t hesitate to lean into Thorin’s side once they were settled at the back, and sighed deeply as the other wrapped her arm around her.

‘Comfortable?’

‘Very. You make for an excellent pillow. Warm and squishy in all the right places.’

‘Likewise.’

‘Are you going to get all mushy back there?’ Kili called from the front. ‘Do I need to plug earphones in?

‘No, you don’t,’ Thorin countered. ‘We’re not being mushy.’

‘Oh, you're just tipsy old ladies, then?’

‘Who are you calling old, you rascal?’

‘Not us, I hope,’ Bilbo interjected. ‘Even if we happen to be well past the foibles of youth. And have a taste for good tipple,’ she finished, giggling into Thorin’s shirt.

And so she listened to Kili reciting funny place-names from the map to his brother at the wheel, her cheek pressed firmly against Thorin’s soft, warm chest, and dozed off between one thought and the next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Both 'Closer To Your Heart' and 'Caislean Óir' from the Clannad album _Macalla_.


	2. Chapter 2

When at last they came to the Long Lake, cradled in the wooded skirts of greying mountains, the sun was already slipping towards the western horizon, painting glimmering trails of golden light over the vast, still surface of the water. Bilbo pressed her nose to the window, but no matter how she squinted and peered, she could not make out the northern shore, lost in the haze and a dark suggestion of yet higher country in the distance.

The town of Esgaroth was built on the western shore of the lake, both on land and above water. Bilbo had done her research, of course, but once again, photographs had failed to capture the essence of the real thing. Dark wooden pillars rose from the water in their dozens, and atop them, the houses stood proud on their high vantage above the glittering surface, close together, but each a slightly different shape and size from its neighbour. As they got closer, she could make out the bright painted eaves and doors and wooden shutters, flashing in the slanting light like the contents of a jewel box.

'That's the Oldtown,' Thorin said, making her startle.

'Sorry,' she muttered. 'It's just– it looks like something out of a storybook, if you know what I mean.'

'I do. And you are right – there are many songs and tales of Esgaroth, or Lake-town, as the name translates to modern tongue, and many of them are quite fantastic.'

'Aunt Thorin– tell her of the dragon! It was my favourite story when we were little,' Kili added.

'Perhaps later. It's quite a long tale, when told properly, and we're already here.'

The new, dryland side of town occupied a long and narrow strip between the shoreline and the hills, and their host lived on the very edge of it, the thick hedge of yew enclosing his neat garden like a bulwark that only barely kept the enroaching wilderness at bay. There were two beehives standing at the very back, and Bilbo started as a particularly large specimen buzzed right past her ear. Unlike many other houses they had passed on the way, this one did not advertise for B&B or room and board, confirming Bilbo's suspicions about Thorin’s convenient last-minute accommodation being a favour instead of a purchase, further affirmed when the latter got pulled into a veritable bear-hug as soon as she stepped out of the car. The tall woman made a indignant squeak, but otherwise suffered the exuberant greeting with good grace.

‘And this,’ said the huge man as he finally released Thorin and turning his grizzled countenance to Bilbo. ‘This must be her. On my word, but you are _tiny,’_ he said, flashing a surprisingly mischievous grin.

‘I beg your pardon!’ Bilbo countered in a huff. She was full five feet and two inches in her stockinged feet, thank you very much, and it was plenty enough for her.

‘And spirited, too– but you must be, if you mean to match her temper,’ the man winked at her.

‘Beorn, _enough._ This is Beorn,’ Thorin told her. ‘An old friend who used to farm sheep, and who’s still better with animals than people.’

‘And this is Thorin, who used to do odd jobs at my place for pennies when she was a chit, so she could learn how to poke people with a knitting needle.’ Beorn held out a huge hand. ‘Any friend of hers is a friend of mine. Welcome.’

‘Thank you,’ Bilbo replied somewhat stiffly. Unfortunate sense of humour aside, this was Thorin’s friend, and she was getting a proper bed out of the bargain.

The lads did not seem to mind having to camp out in the van, more the opposite, for reasons that soon became clear.

'You two remember rule number one?' asked Thorin as she hoisted both her own bag and Bilbo’s out of the car.

'Aye-aye – what happens in the bandmobile, stays in the bandmobile,' Kili sing-songed back at her. 'Fee, give me a hand here, I think that hinge's got stuck again.'

'Just admit you're too puny to spread it out by yourself.'

'I'll show you puny,' Kili muttered darkly, and yanked at the backseat again, until it gave an ugly metallic groan and moved forward. 'Ha!'

'And rule number two?'

'There isn't a rule number two,' claimed Kili, now pushing at the backrest until it too lay flat. Then he flopped down onto the folded-out bed and peered up at them. ‘Is there?’

'There is after last time.'

'That was Fee's fault, not mine!'

'It certainly wasn't– I wasn't even–'

'Rule one,' Thorin interrupted. 'I don't want to know. Rule two: clear up the evidence. Or leave it for your mother to find. Your choice.'

The sudden identical looks of terror on the boys’ faces were so abject that Bilbo had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.

The dinner was every bit as ample as the bed in the guest bedroom, and Bilbo had to admit Beorn was more than a fair cook (that there was no meat on the table had first surprised her, and then made her chide herself for prejudice), but the dogs definitely unnerved her. There were three of them, all just as grey and big and shaggy as their master, and while they wouldn’t do anything as ill-mannered as beg, she felt dark mournful eyes follow each and every morsel of food that left her plate. This did not seem to faze Fili and Kili, who inhaled everything in sight and excused themselves well before she and Thorin even got to the pudding, and Bilbo could hear the car start outside before the front door had fully closed. Thorin simply shrugged and poured a small measure of whisky over what she'd called a cranachan, and what Bilbo would call a raspberry trifle with oats and honey thrown in.

'They have their own friends,' she said. 'And I don’t think parking the van right outside our window would fit their plans.'

Bilbo hummed around her spoonful of berries, cream and honey. The strong spirit complemented the combination surprisingly well, even if she had never been a fan of the smoky taste. 'And you?' she asked, 'Do you plan to park yourself for the night already?'

'Not necessarily. What did you have in mind?'

'A bit of fresh air after sitting all day in that tin can you call a car,' Bilbo replied. 'I was thinking of having a walk; playing the tourist for a bit while the light lasts.' She tilted her head. 'Which reminds me– I was promised a tale of a dragon.'

'I might be persuaded,' said Thorin with a small smile and pushed her chair off the table. ‘Shall we?’

A thin, orange-glowing sliver of the sun was still visible above the crest of hills as they walked down to the lakeshore and found a bench perfectly set for sightseeing. The wind was dying, but was yet strong enough to cast ripples over the pink-tinted water. ‘So. About the dragon?’ Bilbo said, stretching out her legs.

‘Very well. But the first part of the tale has very little to do with Esgaroth, since the town did not even exist at the time.’

Bilbo quirked an eyebrow at her.

‘Why do you think it was built upon water to begin with? _Because_ of the dragon, and the threat of dragonflame. And so I must first tell you how the beast came to these parts.’ Thorin paused and looked out upon the lake, and yet somehow appearing not to see it. Her dark hair was pulling free from its braid, and her profile stood out sharp against the vivid blue fringes of the sunset. She looked, like Bilbo had thought before, like a creature of legend herself, and when she spoke, her voice had the slow solemn cadences of a storyteller of yore.

‘Once upon a time,’ she began, ‘long before our reckoning, Thror, son of Dáin, son of Náin, was King Under the Mountain. His kingdom was wealthy beyond measure, and its king likewise, yet he would not be satisfied, but coveted ever more gold, and true-silver, and precious gems of all kinds – and not for the sake of their beauty, but for the plain and simple desire of possessing them. In truth, so deep went his greed for such things that it was not entirely unlike the hunger of a dragon for its hoard.’

‘And no such wealth could long exist in secret and concealment, for rumour and hearsay have swift feet, and swifter wings. Indeed, all too soon there came the fateful day when word of King Thror’s marvelous treasure came to the ears of a great and terrible dragon of the North – for in those days such creatures still dwelt in the faraway places of the world – and this wyrm was none other than Smaug the Golden.’

Bilbo wrapped her arms around her knees and sat quietly, enthralled by the storyteller’s voice, and the tale itself – on one hand, it was purely fantastic, with dragons and dwarves and goblins, yet the depiction of exile and blood feud and war struck a chord within her, quite like some passages of _Beowulf_ – a feeling of truthfulness simpler and deeper than dry historical fact.

And as stories do, it inevitably came to an end.

‘And that was how Thrain son of Thror, a king without a kingdom, together with his son Thorin, came to find refuge for their people after their wandering years. But a roof over their heads and food on their table were meagre comforts, for in their heart of hearts they still yearned for their lost home in Erebor and plotted revenge on the wyrm.’

There was silence for a long moment; but the wind in the reeds and the faraway sound of a car passing on the road behind them. The waters of the lake had darkened into a deep velvety shade of blue reflecting the cloudless sky above.

‘You know, that ending is what we in the business call a sequel hook,’ Bilbo finally said.

‘The second part is for tomorrow’s bedtime story,’ Thorin leaned closer to Bilbo with his mouth quirking up on one side. ‘If you behave.’

Bilbo snorted. ‘Bold of you to assume I can be cowed with threats. Because _I_ happen to know where you’re ticklish.’ She shot out a hand, giggling when Thorin flinched back on instinct.

‘Truce?’ she suggested. ‘I offer an unconditional promise to tell the rest on a later date of your choosing.’

‘If I promise not to tickle you silly, I presume? Fair enough. But only–’ Bilbo held up a finger– ‘if you answer one question for me.’

‘About the story?’

Bilbo nodded. ‘About the story. Because I could not help noticing that I had heard some of the names before, and I’m wondering if you were pulling my leg or if there’s another story in there.’

Thorin let out a small huff of laughter. ‘No wonder, nor much of a story there – only that my parents were not keen on letting the old names die out, and these ones have been cropping up in the family every few generations. Only, if my father had had his way, I would have been called Dis, but mother argued that the birth order mattered more than gender – and that Thorin was a rare enough name that no one could tell either way.’

‘I, for one, would never have guessed – thank you for letting me in on the secret,’ Bilbo smiled. ‘I think it rather suits you.’

‘It has served me well enough,’ Thorin admitted. ‘But that’s not all; one of the reasons this story used to be Kili’s favourite is that he has a namesake in the second part, one who has all kinds of adventures.’

‘No! Really?’

Thorin’s solemn nod was somewhat ruined by the laughter lines crinkling the corners of her eyes. ‘Fili and Kili, sons of Dis. My brother-in-law thought it was hilarious, since his name happens to be Vili. And my sister can be quite like our mother when she sets her mind to something.’ Thorin stood up and stretched out her arms with an audible crack. ‘But if we’re done storytelling, you said you wanted to see the sights?’ She tilted her head towards the Old Esgaroth perching long-legged over the waters.

‘Hmm. Yes, please,’ said Bilbo, got up and took Thorin’s hand. ‘Care to play the tour guide for me?’

~*~

The bridge to the old part of town was not particularly long, or particularly rickety, but narrow enough to make Bilbo slightly skittish; there was barely room for the two of them to walk abreast, and a handrail only on one side. She skimmed her fingertips over the top bar, and noticed how the whole thing appeared to be visibly newer than the rest of the bridge. She wondered if they had ever done without the railing, and if yes, how many people had toppled into the water each year.

The bridge ended at a roofed-over gate – or a gate-house, Bilbo supposed it was called, for the buildings on each side of the passage conjoined to form a short tunnel. After passing through, she saw Esgaroth proper was like any quaint 'olde times' town she had ever visited when traveling – and yet entirely different.

Instead of cobblestones, there were tarred planks under her feet, and each step made a soft hollow sound. And there were no streets or roads to speak of, only canals meandering between houses, some of them so narrow that Bilbo thought she could have touched her fingertips to each of the walls, standing on the walkway above the dark water.

She didn’t, of course, because the town was hardly deserted of onlookers; they passed people coming and going, hanging up lanterns or banners or putting finishing touches on the stalls built around what would have been the market square in a regular town. Here, it was a large pool, a perfect circle of water hemmed in at all sides by grand and colourful houses, still and sheltered from wind. Several ramps led down from the walkways down to the water’s edge, where it looked like some merchants would peddle their wares straight from their boats.

‘The market is just as important as the festival,’ Thorin said, noticing the direction of her gaze, ‘if not more, for it is the older of the two. They say that the Spring and Autumn Markets of Esgaroth used to be the grandest in all the region. Of course, August would have been far too early for an Autumn Market back then, but the opportunity to hit two birds with one stone is too good to pass. Or so the town council thinks,’ she added.

‘It looks lovely,’ Bilbo said. ‘I can’t wait to see what’s on offer–’ she pursed her mouth. ‘I wonder if I have enough cash on me.’

‘There’s an ATM on the dryland side – and you’d be surprised to see how many people have card readers these days–’ Thorin smiled impishly. ‘You have to be prepared to fleece the unsuspecting tourist.’

‘Oh that’s your scheme,’ Bilbo laughed, giving her a playful shove, 'you’ve just brought me as one victim more to be separated from their hard-earned holiday money.’

‘Not at all. You’re my guest, and as such, you get to peek behind the scenes. Come.’ Thorin hooked her arm through Bilbo’s and led her around the market. ‘This is the Master’s Hall,’ she pointed out the tallest building, with flamboyantly curling eaves cut through with repeating lace-like motifs. ‘It’s where we’ll have the workshops and most of the performances, and the ceilidh tomorrow evening.’ They walked past the high hall and turned onto another walkway bordered by brightly lit windows. ‘But anywhere you can buy a pint, there’s bound to be someone playing. It’s a thirsty work, making music.’ Thorin grinned, and her teeth flashed white in the fading light.

‘And what’s this behind-the-scenes part?’

‘The one where I show you how we take an early start.’ Thorin stopped before an open door spilling warm light and the sound of several voices into the cool evening air. The gently swinging sign above said ‘Arrow and Flame’.

The lintel was low enough that Thorin had to duck her head as they stepped in. Almost everyone knew her, Bilbo realized as they made their way to the bar, with Thorin exchanging greetings right and left. By the time Bilbo had a pint in her hand she had forgotten or mixed up half the names she’d heard – for instance, she wasn’t quite sure, whether the self-proclaimed master of ceremonies presently standing up on a chair was called Bifur or Bofur. The man pushed the coffee-coloured beanie off his face, scanning the crowd, then blew out a shrill whistle through his fingers.

‘Splendid,’ he said as soon as the chatter had died down a notch. ‘I was thinking that we might as well go ahead and do some serious singing, seeing as we finally got someone who can pull off the solemn bits–’ he nodded his head towards where Bilbo and Thorin were standing at the bar– ‘Thorin, would you do the honours?’

Voices rose around them in cheerful agreement, but Thorin stood quiet for a spell, looking across the room, to where Bilbo spotted Fili propped precariously against the wall, the front legs of his chair in the air. Then she lifted her glass as if for a toast, and the light struck gold in the amber-coloured liquid within. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I’ll give you “The King Under the Mountain”.’ And with that she downed the whiskey to a round of applause that quieted down without urging.

' _Under the Mountain dark and tall_ ,' she began in the near-perfect hush, ‘ _the King has come unto his hall! / His foe is dead, the Worm of Dread, / and ever so his foes shall fall._ ’ At the end of the verse, a fiddle picked up the melody, a melancholy note yet keen, and Bilbo glanced around to see Fili playing, his face absorbed in concentration, eyes half-closed. Other voices joined the singing, and soon enough, Bilbo was humming along herself, wishing for sheet music with words.

More songs followed that first, most of which she didn’t know, and many in a language that sounded close enough to Irish to feel like she should understand, while she clearly couldn’t.

Then, after a few more rounds of drinks, a vividly, achingly familiar tune piped up on a wooden whistle, followed immediately by ‘ _There is an inn, a merry old inn, beneath an old grey hill…’_  and before she knew it, she was singing softly, the words coming back to her like a shoal of glittering fish to the surface of the water.

But verse after verse she noticed other voices dropping off, until it was only her and... Bofur, she was quite sure it was, the brown beanie fellow. 'You know all the words?' he asked, dropping the tune. When she nodded, he grinned at her between his drooping moustaches. 'Brilliant. Want to teach these ignorant louts?'

And then she was standing up on her chair, and Bofur was calling 'From the top!' and she was singing like she was twelve again, any self-consciousness fallen off somewhere between the third pint and the next, evaporated into the glow of warmth in the low-ceilinged room. By the end of the second sing-through half the pub was singing along with her to the accompaniment of guitar and wooden whistle. She was breathless with laughter when they were through, and then for another reason entirely, from being kissed soundly by Thorin.

‘That was marvelous!’ Thorin said as they stumbled out into the night. ‘Why did you never say you sang?’

‘Because I hardly do– compared to you I can hardly sing at all!’ Bilbo insisted, leaning heavily into Thorin’s side.

Thorin shook her head forcefully. ‘No. No, that won’t do. I won’t stand it.’ She seized Bilbo’s shoulders and pushed her against the nearest wall. ‘I won’t stand it,’ she repeated.

‘What?’ Bilbo gasped, confused by the sudden intensity in the other woman’s voice.

‘I won’t stand to hear any slander against the woman I–’ Thorin halted with a sudden hitch of her breath. ‘The woman I’ve come to care for,’ she finished weakly, and Bilbo’s own breath caught in her chest, wound tight by the force of some unspoken emotion.

‘Thorin,’ she spoke into the scant space between them, only to find that all words but the name had deserted her tongue. She reached out and fisted her hands in the fabric of Thorin’s T-shirt, pulling her down to the reach of her mouth.

For all that the kiss started as a desperate effort to communicate something too new and fragile for words, it wound down to sweet and unhurried, and was reluctant to end. Bilbo could not have said how long they stood there in the lee of an old timber wall, breaths mingling around the soft press of lips, pulling apart, noses brushing one another, then leaning back in for another taste, equally fleeting, yet lingering in its constant repetition.

‘You’re teaching the workshop,’ Bilbo eventually managed, ‘in the afternoon, yes?’

‘At twelve,’ Thorin murmured, lips finding the tender place below her ear, and Bilbo’s fingers clasped reflexively at the dark tresses escaping from their ties, because _yes_ and _please_.

‘Oh good,’ she breathed, ‘we can sleep in. In the morning. Not now. I’m not in the mood, not for sleeping.’

‘Is that so?’ And she could feel the soft treble of Thorin’s laughter sparkle over her own skin, drawing heat down to where their legs slotted easily together, Thorin’s weight pressing her against the wall, and the wood felt just cool enough, even through her jacket, for Bilbo to remember it would be September next week, and at any moment, someone could come upon them. She pushed firmly against Thorin’s chest.

‘Come on. I think I’d rather… well, that I’d rather continue this in a room.’

'We could always nab the van, if it's still where I saw it last,' Thorin said as Bilbo tugged at her hand. 'I have the spare keys.'

'Stuff and nonsense! Absolutely not. I've had enough of sleeping in cars for one lifetime. And yes,' she confirmed with a smirk over her shoulder, 'all kinds of "sleeping".'

'Not in a dark alley, not in the car – you truly are a creature of comfort, are you?' Thorin teased.

‘You didn’t scoff at the comforts of my bed, if I remember correctly.’

‘Fair enough. Bed it is.’

They passed through the dark tunnel of the gate and beneath the open sky, and Bilbo stopped on her tracks, suddenly breathless.

The still waters of the lake shimmered in the black bowl of hills and mountains, faithfully reflecting the brilliant starscape stretching out above them. She walked slowly onto the bridge, and startled at the hollow sound of her own footsteps in the quiet night, blindly grasping for the invisible handrail. She looked over her shoulder at the warm lights twinkling here and there in the houses perching above the silver-spangled water, and heard the faint echo of music and laughter. Looking back towards the shore, she could see but a few lights, small and bluish. It must be late enough, she told herself, for the streetlights to have gone out, but she could not shake the feeling that the Old Esgaroth behind them was the only town there was, and at the end of the dark bridge awaited but wilderness, perhaps a fisherman’s hut here or there, but nothing more.

Her hand was clasped in a firm hold, long callused musician’s fingers warm between her cold ones. ‘I won’t let you trip and fall into the lake, if that’s what you fear,’ Thorin said softly.

Bilbo drew a deep breath. ‘No. It’s not that.’ She took a few cautious steps, then a few more, and the clunky bridge of darkness held firm over the star-studded depths. ‘I simply– this feels to me like what Irish songs sounded like when I was a kid, that I’ve somehow stumbled into a place between worlds. That if I crossed this bridge, I wouldn’t find your hippy van parked at the waterfront, or Beorn’s house, and that ridiculous oversized bed, but instead someplace where the King Under the Mountain is more than a song.’

‘And which one would you prefer?’

‘The one where I had you with me,’ Bilbo said without thinking, plain words driven from her by the drink and the song and the humbling vastness of heavens both above and below. The stars, she thought, the stars must be the same here and in fairyland, because the sky did not change on their journey across.

‘’Tis the mundane realm, I’m afraid,’ said Thorin as they came to the concrete-paved sidewalk of the dryland town. ‘But I hope you’ll still have me.’

‘Never doubt that,’ Bilbo breathed, and the words clouded in the crisp air as they walked hand in hand into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I beg you to exercise your right to suspension of disbelief re:the story/name thing. I did say 'self-indulgent', didn't I?
> 
> The song 'King Under the Mountain' is from the book, sung by the Company when Erebor was under siege. [Here's the entire text.](http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Under_the_mountain_dark_and_tall)
> 
> And I don't suppose 'Man In the Moon' needs introductions ([here's](http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/The_Man_in_the_Moon_Stayed_Up_Too_Late) the text anyway for the sake of completeness).


	3. Chapter 3

Bilbo woke to soft morning light filtering in through the curtains, and to Thorin watching her with a thoughtful mien, her head propped up on one arm.

‘Sleep well?’

And Bilbo, with her deep affection for tales of fated love and adventure, had always thought whirlwind romances did not happen to real people, or if they did, they needed the catalyst of war or some other extenuating circumstance. Yet here she was, faced with a disarmingly tender look from someone she had barely spent two whole days with – and it only frightened her because it felt right.

‘Wonderfully,’ she whispered back and leaned in to kiss Thorin, sour morning breath and all, because she wanted to, and because it was that or confess she never wanted to wake up with anyone else ever again.

The gentle, unhurried lovemaking was a first between them, yet familiar, for urgent or sweet, Bilbo’s whole body felt alight with it, with Thorin’s hands cradling the back of her head as they kissed, skin sliding against warm skin, yearning closer, and the soft, teasing press of Thorin’s mouth against the hollow of her throat, the circuitous meanderings of her fingers over – it felt like – every inch of Bilbo’s skin until they were finally, _finally,_ buried knuckle-deep into the ache between her legs, and she cried out against Thorin’s shoulder, arching up into her touch; the weight of Thorin’s breasts filling up her hands, the taste of her sweat sharp on the tip of her tongue, the way she shivered from head to toe as Bilbo’s thumbs drew slow circles onto the soft inside of her thighs, the soft sounds she made as Bilbo tasted her salty-slick heat.

They came down late for breakfast, and Bilbo leveled her best shutting-up-of-nosy-cousins glare at their host, daring him to comment, but Beorn only asked her if she liked her eggs scrambled, and if yes, whether she minded having garlic in them. The dogs, true to their master, also reserved their curiosity for culinary matters.

‘They don’t make proper food down south,’ Beorn declared as he handed her a plate of steaming eggs cooked to buttery perfection, topped with herbs, fragrant with garlic, and flanked by a mound of tiny fried tomatoes. ‘They’ve ruined it like they’ve done with the air. See if you can’t persuade that one to stay a while longer,’ he nodded across the table to where Thorin was buttering a thick-crusted slice of toast. ‘A week on her Mam’s cooking would do wonders – she’s always been too far on the lanky side.’

‘May I remind you that I’m no longer fifteen,’ Thorin said with an air of oft-visited argument, ‘and perfectly able to do my own cooking.’

‘So you say, but you always look haler after the holidays than before – but then again, it might be the air. I never understood your sister for wanting to live in all that smoke.’

‘It was her own choice, just as it was mine,’ Thorin said stiffly.

‘What is a choice that binds forever?’ Beorn hung his considerable apron onto a nail in the wall and leaned against the window frame, peering out. ‘Even the wind changes when it needs to.’

‘Well, hopefully not too much,’ Bilbo chimed in. ‘We were planning to visit the market today.’

‘Of course you would. It’s a fine day for it. And a fine one for a walk as well.’ An abrupt scrabble of claws against tile followed Beorn’s last words as all canine attention in the room was suddenly drawn away from Bilbo and Thorin’s breakfast. ‘Yes,’ the large man assured the three pairs of soulful eyes trained hopefully at him. ‘That’s what we’ll do. You two,’ he told Bilbo and Thorin, ‘can let yourselves in, if you need to.’ And with that, he strode out of the room, and shortly thereafter, they could hear the front door open and close.

‘He’ll hike out into the hills,’ Thorin interpreted. ‘Likely as not, he won’t be back before sundown.’

~*~

The day was clear, but colder than the previous one, with a brisk wind pulling thin streaks of cloud across the washed-out sky. Bilbo was glad of her wind-breaker as they walked down to the waterfront and across the long bridge, turned back to mundane by daylight.

The market wasn’t exactly thronged, but there were plenty enough people for a brisk trade. To Bilbo’s delight, the sellers doing business straight off the boat were not averse to sampling – and she took the opportunity to indulge in small, savoury morsels of fish in every guise and flavour imaginable. She ended up buying several jars of pickled whitefish in different seasonings and a slice of vacuum-packed smoked trout she was assured would keep unrefrigerated until opened.

Then she spotted beautiful leather wristcuffs in one of the stalls, and insisted on getting a matching pair.

‘We’re a bit past friendship bracelets, don’t you think?’ Thorin tried to argue.

‘Oh bebother you– don’t you realize we’re both still twelve inside?’ Bilbo quipped back. ‘See, there’s a nice blue one here.’ She pointed at a piece with an embossed arrowhead pattern.

‘That would be a paradox– I’m older than you.’

‘Five years at our age is like five months at twelve– sea breeze and dandelion fluff.’ Her tone was light, but it hadn’t slipped past her that Thorin might not have been talking about age, and when she slotted her fingers between Thorin’s she gripped her hand tighter than was quite necessary. ‘Humour me. Let us be sorry old saps and match.’

‘You’re not old,’ Thorin protested, nuzzling onto her hair.

‘Nor by extension are you,’ Bilbo concluded, already counting out cash to a bemused-looking craftswoman. ‘Here– have a well-past-friendship bracelet.’ Thorin said nothing as she snapped the cuff closed around her hand, but her fingers were soft against the inside of Bilbo’s wrist as she returned the favour.

‘Blue suits your skin,’ she pointed out, tracing out the contour of the leather and sending a lovely shiver up Bilbo’s arm.

‘You think so? Likewise.’ And if she sounded a tad breathless, surely such was allowed, when one was so newly in– She stopped the thought in its tracks, and pointed to the next stall, this one selling wooden lanterns. ‘Look, ‘ she said, ‘those are not made with glass, do you think? I wonder if it’s some kind of skin.’

Upon asking, the strange translucent stuff turned out to be salmon skin, and Bilbo made a delighted sound in spite of herself as she carefully ran a finger over the subtly dappled pattern shifting from deep grey to silvery white.

‘This large round one would look lovely in the garden,’ she sighed, ‘but I really don't know how I would get it back home in one piece.’

‘Bilbo, love; we drove up here in a van,’ said Thorin. ‘Buy half the market if it pleases you.’

Bilbo flashed her a quick smile, a sudden warmth flickering from inside her to colour her cheeks at the casual endearment. ‘What do you know– I might just do that.’

In the end they had to make a detour back to Beorn’s house not only to get Thorin’s harp, but because they needed to deposit two lanterns: the lovely large one, and a smaller one to keep it company, Bilbo’s bagful of fish, a soft lace shawl that she claimed to be the exact shade of the camper van – ‘to better remember this trip by’ – and a small book of sheet music.

~*~

Watching Thorin unpack her harp at the Master’s Hall, Bilbo dearly wished she could stay and listen in on the workshop, but as more people carrying instrument cases trickled into the room, she was soon feeling like the odd one out. So she waved Thorin goodbye with a promise to meet for a bite to eat later in the afternoon.

That, however, left her with some loose time in her hands. Dithering at the steps outside the Master’s Hall, she fished a program leaflet from her purse. There was a dance recital she had marked out, but that would only start in another hour. So she turned to her favourite pastime in strange towns, namely pleasantly aimless wandering. Following the outer perimeter of the small lake-top town, she eventually discovered a tiny bookshop tucked in between a gaudy souvenir store and a tea house. The bespectacled girl behind the counter barely looked up from her book when the door chimed, but Bilbo spent a very pleasant half an hour browsing, and left with a proper map of the area and a lovely notebook bound in red cloth.

She made it to the recital at the last minute, and slipped quietly onto a free seat towards the back, next to the aisle where she could actually see something. It was hardly the first time she had gone solo to such an event, so it was strange that she now kept turning to the empty seat next to her at any bit she particularly enjoyed, as if for commentary.

Afterwards, she wondered if Thorin had purposefully kept quiet about the last number of the set.

‘Now,’ started the white-bearded gentleman who’d been announcing the performers and their accompaniment, ‘due to the overwhelming interest in last year’s… _unexpected programme item_ –’ cue hooting laughter from the audience– ‘we have specially requested a repeat performance in official capacity– ‘a heartfelt cheer– ‘please welcome the brothers Durinul and the dagger jig – and I’m obliged by our insurance company to ask you not to try this at home.’

In unison, and to thunderous applause, Fili and Kili stepped onto the stage. They were both wearing kilts of deep blue and grey tartan, with matching blue waistcoats over white shirts, which was all quite in line with the previous performers’ outfits. What _wasn’t_ in line were the long knives and small bucklers in their hands. After a flamboyant bow to the audience, they stepped back to face one another across a distance of perhaps five paces. From the band corner, a single drum began to beat a steady, foot-tapping rhythm, and just as the pipes joined in, Bilbo could see the boys exchange a nod.

She started at the first thump of feet against the wooden floor. The lads must be wearing different sort of brogues than the other dancers, she thought – not steel-tipped, but heavy enough to strike a solid sound from the boards, tightly in sync with the drumbeat.

The first _shik_ of steel on steel did not surprise her, because _that_ she had been expecting since the first saw the knives. The sound of blade and shield repeated and quickened into a rapid-fire ornamentation to the pipes’ melody as the dancers spun to the beat, matching the drum pace for pace until they became a blur of steel and tartan, golden hair and dark flying as they clashed together and whirled apart, circling each other in a duel turned dance.

It was the same energy that they had forged into music on stage at The Green Dragon, but honed and focused into a fast-motion balancing act that had Bilbo watching with bated breath. She knew that the blades must be blunt, but at the speed the two were moving, any hit would surely hurt – and it would only take one misstep, one off-beat turn, and the drum was still picking up speed, the pipe weaving an accelerating fierce trill that ended in a single high note, a synchronized clash of steel and feet.

For a single breathless moment, the brothers stood poised in a frozen tableau, their arms hooked, each with a dagger point inches from the other’s laughing face. Then the entire hall erupted to standing applause, Bilbo with the rest, her heart still racing with the drumbeat. Eventually, there was a well-deserved encore, and an encore of an encore after that, before the grinning pair were kindly but firmly ushered offstage.

The lads caught up with Bilbo on her way out; they were still in their tartan, but with denim jackets thrown over their shoulders, looking for all the world like they had one foot on the 18th century, and the other on the 21st.

‘I have never seen anything like that,’ she told them, a truth in place of a greeting. ‘It was–’

‘– amazing, I know,’ said Kili, pushing a hank of hair from his face. ‘Worth the drive, no?’

Bilbo laughed, rolling her eyes.

‘But Kee, that’s not what she’s really here for, is it?’

‘Of course not,’ said Kili, matching his brother grin for grin.

‘We have you all set up,’ said Fili, taking her arm. ‘You’re lucky it’s not raining.’

~*~

Bilbo had to admit a picnic was a fine idea, but she put her foot down on all-out burgling Beorn’s pantry.

‘Just because he’s not at home and I have the key doesn’t mean we can do as we please!’

‘That’s what Thorin would do; those two go back a long way,’ Fili pointed out.

‘Way back when she was younger than me, if you can imagine,’ said Kili, pushing the fridge closed with one elbow. ‘Fee, can you find a basket or something; I'll figure out the sandwiches.’

‘Better you do it,’ Fili said to Bilbo. ‘Unless you fancy both indigestion and food poisoning as romantic accompaniments.’

‘That was one time, you idiot! And who even keeps expired stuff in their fridge?’

‘Anyone who isn’t our Mam – that’s what Use By Dates are for.’ Fili ducked smartly away from the cuff aimed at the back of his head, while Bilbo dove after any foodstuffs in danger of rolling off the table.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Out of the kitchen, both of you – find me that basket; and a blanket, too, since you know your way about.’

‘On it!’

The kitchen door swung shut, and Bilbo stared down at the table, letting out a sharp huff. There was fresh bread, a roll of herb butter, a piece of what she thought was sheep’s cheese, a couple of tomatoes, some greens. Well, she could certainly work with that.

She was less certain what to make of Thorin’s nephews playing the matchmaker.

‘So, you like it here, don’t you?’ said Fili when the two got back to the kitchen, presenting her with a quite serviceable lidded basket and a striped grey blanket that had seen better days. He didn’t really phrase it as a question.

‘It _is_ very beautiful here,’ Bilbo agreed, wrapping the last sandwich into parchment paper, folding the corners down smooth and snug beneath it, like her mother had always done. ‘And the festival has been lovely so far.’

‘That’s good,’ said the younger brother, pinching a corner off the cheese and popping it into his mouth, ignoring Bilbo’s dirty look. ‘Because Thorin hasn’t brought anyone up here since the Stone Age, so we think she’s showing off.’

‘There,’ said Fili, pushing two condensation-dewy beer bottles into the basket between the sandwiches. ‘One romantic lunch ready to go. Try not to make her too late for the second part of the workshop, will you? Because people will be asking _us_ , and the “I don’t want to know” policy goes both ways.’

Bilbo didn’t dignify that with more response than a snort, took the basket and walked back to Old Esgaroth.

~*~

On Thorin’s suggestion, they walked right through the narrow strip of new Esgaroth on the lakeshore, and followed an almost invisible uphill path until they came to a bare outcropping of rock sheltered from the worst of wind by a stand of gnarly pine trees. Down below them, the Long Lake glittered in the noonday sun, long and slim and sharp-edged like the neolithic spearheads Bilbo had seen in museums, only made of crystal instead of flint, and tapering to a point where the horizon fused glittering mist into the blue haze of the highlands.

She leaned her back against the sun-warmed stone, and stretched out her legs. ‘Thank goodness for the weather,’ she said, drinking in the view. ‘Imagine if it rained.’

‘I’d rather remember,’ said Thorin,‘one rather lovely rainy night there was just the other day.’ Bilbo could hear the ill-concealed teasing in her voice and it made her face and chest flush with warmth. ‘But better enjoy this while it lasts. You’re up north now, my love. Our autumns are early and our winters inhospitable.’

‘Somehow you make that sound inviting rather than off-putting,’ Bilbo replied, tracing meandering lines over the back of Thorin’s hand, resting warm and idle and right on top of her thigh. ‘Tell me... it snows up here every winter, doesn’t it? And the lake freezes over?’

Thorin nodded. ‘Yes and yes. It snows in heaps and blizzards, and the wind drives the drifts over the ice, like great curtains of white lace. But it’s not called a “lazy wind” for nothing,’ she went on in her deep story-teller’s voice, ‘because it won’t bother to make a detour around us mortals, not when it can as easily blow straight through us, no matter how we wrap ourselves up. It comes heavy from the sea, and it’s snow-laden and bitter.’

‘Yet you speak warmly of it, as if you miss it,’ said Bilbo half to herself. ‘I think I would happily take the chance of that instead of the grey clouds and mist and constant cold rain. And the mud that gets everywhere. _You_ come up here for holidays, don’t you?’

‘Every year.’ Thorin smiled slowly, as if to an unexpected but pleasant insight. ‘Why, Miss Baggins, you almost sound like you’re angling for an invitation.’

‘Stuff and nonsense,’ BIlbo laughed, ‘what reason could I have for wanting to avoid another family gathering where every nosy baggage wants to know when I’m finally getting married.’

‘Perhaps _you_ should invite _me_ – they might stop asking,’ suggested Thorin.

‘They would only get worse,’ Bilbo insisted, shaking her head, ‘they would start asking _when._ For the ordering of hats, you see.’

‘And you don’t want that.’ Thorin’s eyes glinted with mischief in a way that was strikingly reminiscent of her nephews. ‘Then I say we should elope.’

‘A bold suggestion, considering neither of us has spoken the question aloud yet.’

Thorin cursed softly under her breath, half laughing. ‘That was weak plot, then, for you saw right through it. Please accept an invite to spend the holidays frozen solid instead.’

‘Accepted, thank you. I fear you underestimate your own powers. Cold holds no fear for me if I can cuddle up to you at the end of the day.’ She wound her arm around Thorin’s waist, leaning her cheek against her shoulder. ‘And I would like to see more of this land. It feels…’ she trailed off, searching for the right words, her eyes following a bird of prey as it climbed higher on the bright windswept sky. ‘It feels almost as if I should stay. Isn’t it ridiculous? I think your mountains and hills have gotten under my skin, Thorin Oakenshield.‘

She squeaked in surprise as she suddenly found herself flat on her back, the sky replaced with the deeper blue of Thorin’s eyes.

‘It’s you who has got under my skin, Bilbo Baggins,’ she said in rough whisper. ‘And I don’t quite know what to do with you.’

‘I think you do. Quite well, in fact.’ Bilbo brushed a stray lock of hair behind Thorin’s ear, and would have done more, had her stomach not chosen that precise moment to emit an embarrassingly loud grumble. ‘Well then,’ she managed, once she’d stopped giggling. ‘Perhaps you should start by keeping me fed.’

‘Yet more reason to come up for the holidays,’ Thorin said as she dug into the picnic basket. ‘My mother does a very old-fashioned Christmas dinner.’

‘Too much of everything?’ Bilbo guessed.

‘And all of it too good to refuse a second helping,’ Thorin confirmed, popped the cap off one beer bottle and handed it to her. ‘I have no doubt she believes we’re starving ourselves for the remainder of the year.’

‘That’s very common in mothers, I think – or grandmothers.’ Bilbo took a swig of the cold brew and bit thoughtfully into her sandwich. ‘She still lives around here, your mother I mean?’ Thorin had only ever spoken of her father in the past tense, and it was not Bilbo’s business to poke. She would tell what she would, in her own time.

‘She does,’ Thorin confirmed. ‘Up north’, she gestured with her free hand. ‘Can you make out the far end of the lake, where the high country begins?’

Bilbo squinted at the dark broken line of the horizon. ‘I think so.’

‘There are more mountains there, as high as they come in this part of the world. One of them is called Erebor; the same as the Lonely Mountain in the dragon’s tale, only with coal in it instead of a golden hoard – and that used to be good enough,’ said Thorin. ‘That’s where I was born. And my sister Dis and our brother Frerin, and all of our family before us.’ She paused, let out a long breath. ‘There’s no-one left there now, but the old ones, and they mean to die with their boots on. My nephews… to them Erebor and Long Lake, this whole country–’ Thorin made a sweeping gesture to take in all the wide horizon– ‘to them, it’s someplace you visit, not someplace you come back to. They were born in _Birmingham._ ’

Bilbo stifled a smile at the way she almost spat the last word. ‘Thorin– I saw them dance the dagger jig. That’s no Birmingham thing.’

Thorin’s face brightened at that. ‘You went to see that? They’re lucky Balin has a sense of humour hidden somewhere in that beard – anyone with a lick of sense would have banned them from stage entirely for the stunt they threw last year.’

‘I gathered they might have done something in that vein.’ Bilbo shook her head slightly. ‘But honestly, that was spectacular; I’ve never seen anything quite like it.’

‘Nor are you likely – there’s a similar thing they dance in Georgia, I’ve heard, but that jig is a revival, in a manner of speaking.’

‘In a manner of speaking, they’re making it up as they go, am I right?’

Thorin shrugged and took a bite of her sandwich. ‘There’s no-one living left to tell us if they were. Dwalin used to spar them with knives for sport, if not for dance – he’s quite good at that sort of thing. Taught close combat for a good long while, back in the service.’

That fit with the vague ex-military vibe Bilbo had got from Dwalin, but there was something in the way Thorin said it that gave her pause.

‘I never told you we were in the army together?’ Thorin asked, apparently catching on her confusion.

Bilbo shook her head. ‘When was that?’

‘After Dain’s father died. After we ended Ravenhill.’ Thorin fell silent for a beat, as if on the verge of saying more, then turned her head to look out over the lake. ‘I served out my four years,’ she said simply, ‘but I think Dwalin would never have left if not for the leg.’ She smiled a little at Bilbo’s confused frown. ‘Afghanistan, back in 2010. He told Fili and Kili to call him Robocop when he was in the hospital, what with all the metal sticking out of him’

‘Sounds like him.’

Thorin snorted. ‘I think the regiment lost an asset in his sense of humour alone. More’s the pity. The military life suited him.’

‘But not you?’

Thorin shook her head, and looked down, where Bilbo’s hand rested on her arm. ‘It was nothing dramatic, if that’s what you think. But that life, that career… it didn’t give me what I was looking for. So I came back, tried all sorts of things to make ends meet. Even stayed with Dis for a while,’ she said with a small incredulous huff.

‘Even with the Birmingham thing?’

‘If that was what it took to see my nephews grow,’ Thorin shrugged. ‘It was slow going, but I made a name for myself; enough to earn a living, if not fame,’ she said as if it was nothing remarkable, to live off her music, as she was. ‘Proved my father wrong, while I was at it–’ her lips turned up into a tight smile, the coldest Bilbo had yet seen on her face– ‘and so it was worthwhile, even if I had to do it far from this land, and hear my sister’s sons grow up speaking in strange accents.’

‘I don’t think,’ Bilbo said slowly, ‘that you need to be _born_ somewhere for a place to feel like home. And the kids these days – they all sound strange to me.’

‘That’s… kind of you to say.’

‘Kindness has nothing to do with it. They’re fine young men, and you’ve done right by them.’ Bilbo pressed her hand to the side of Thorin’s face, a soft careful caress. ‘I would tell you not to dwell on the past, but that would be pot calling the kettle black.’

Thorin smiled back at her, and her eyes were the warm blue of a summer’s sky. ‘That might well be. Maybe we should both rather dwell on tomorrows.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dagger jig based on [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gqOiSMNxnY&t=35s).


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A coda in which I stretch the story thing to the limits of believeability, but I enjoyed myself too much not to :)

The gods and spirits of good weather had been favourable, and so the ceilidh spilled out into the cloudless, velvet-blue evening.

The dinner – no, the feast – had been magnificent, the drink overflowing, up to a point where Bilbo doubted anyone would have the energy or the balance to dance. 

She needn’t have worried. She was only halfway through the pudding when Balin – as the undisputed master of ceremonies – rang his glass for the attention of the room.

‘I am quite certain many of you would now feel like dancing,’ he said, ‘but their feet are – would I say – regrettably weighted down by this too-fine feast.’ He waited as the laughter died down. ‘That predicament will, naturally, pass with time– and to help us spend it, I would propose a story or two. Do we have any volunteers for the telling?’

Bilbo was not surprised when Thorin stood up beside her. ‘I have been asked to tell of the dragon’s ending,’ she said. ‘It’s a tale that's been told before, and told often, but would you hear it once more?’

The chorus of assent was loud enough she need not have bothered asking.

‘Once upon a time, long years past now,’ Thorin began as she walked towards the center of the floor, her voice carrying easily even unamplified, smooth and dark with hidden power as a deep-running river. ‘There was a dragon in the mountain of Erebor. How it came to be there is the matter of another tale, but I think you all know that one.’ She paused, and none protested. ‘Very well. For one hundred and seventy years, Smaug the Golden, a great fire-drake of the North, had lain on top of its ill-begotten hoard, growing idle and fat while the lands about the Mountain turned dead and desolate with its malice. That very year, on a rain-sodden night in springtime, it so happened that the wandering wizard called Gandalf met with Thorin son of Thrain, a king without a kingdom, whom his own people had given the name of Oakenshield…’

Bilbo almost choked on her drink when she heard her own name mentioned for the first time. Her mother, she reasoned, had traveled here and there and everywhere, that one silly song was proof enough. Perhaps, she thought, Belladonna Took had also heard this very same tale, and the name had stuck with her. (In her mind’s eye, Bilbo could see the antique glory box, full of yellowing maps, dog-eared journals and fading ticket stubs. Her mother had joked about burning the lot of it, but at the very end she had not had the strength, and Bilbo – she had not had the heart.)

And perhaps it was the drink, for her blood felt like one quarter of whisky as it beat in her veins, but the story felt too familiar, as if she had heard it as a child, only to forget. Or perhaps it simply was that grand quests and magical forests were age-old motifs, repeated in tale after tale. But to hear Thorin tell how the King Under the Mountain fell from grace, caught in the dragon’s posthumous curse, and the little burglar made his desperate gambit, his doomed attempt at peace judged as betrayal – it all made her heart ache, and her cheeks were wet with tears well before the end.

There was a moment of heavy silence, then a solemn, standing ovation.

‘I’m sorry,’ Thorin said as she returned to her seat, her hand a comforting weight on Bilbo’s shoulder as she blew her nose on a napkin. ‘Everyone else knows how it ends, and I forgot you were hearing it for the first time.’

‘No, I–’ Bilbo tried– ‘that’s not it. I understand why the King had to die, because that’s the way the story works: the wages of hubris and honour regained. And how they laid the great sword upon his tomb to guard over the kingdom – that’s pure Charlemagne, or Owain Glyndŵr; the makings of a myth – but the sister-sons, too? That’s cruel.’ She ran a finger under one eye and started rooting through her purse for a mirror when it came back stained black. ‘Are you sure  _ this _ was Kili’s favourite? The story where his namesake dies at the end?’

‘Ah, but there’s the thing.’ Bilbo looked up to see Thorin’s eyes crinkle with amusement. ‘He never liked that one bit. But he would play-act his own endings, where his hero lived.’

Bilbo thought of the camper van painted with fierce little warriors, and laughed in spite of herself. ‘Of course he would.’

Thorin was followed by a local take on ‘The Death Bogle of the Crossroads’, told by an older gentleman whose salt-and pepper hair stuck up from his head like bristles from a boar. And then it was finally time for dancing.

She really couldn’t dance, Bilbo tried to argue, and certainly not to any music that was this lively.

‘It’s easy,’ Thorin said. ‘You just follow my lead.’ And Bilbo gave in, and even if she wouldn’t have called it easy, somehow she managed to step to the beat of the sprightly tune without too many collisions, although she would blame that on her expert lead. As one melody bled into the next, some of the dancers took their turn playing, and vice versa, and Bilbo found herself spun and twirled by both Fili and Kili in turn, then by Bofur, who had lost his shapeless hat somewhere, and white-bearded Balin, who was, she now knew, Dwalin’s older brother, before finally, laughing and breathless, ending up in Thorin’s arms once more.

‘Can we please step out after this one?’ she asked, quite loud, to be heard over the music and the clatter of feet on wooden boards. ‘I need a glass of water, and some air.’

‘You look like you do.’ Thorin grinned down at her, wide and brilliant. ‘But it’s a good look on you, all danced out,’ she added when Bilbo made to protest, and the implication, that Thorin enjoyed the sight of her all flushed and panting, was enough to make her falter in her steps, then mock-punch her partner for laughing.

Outside the Master’s Hall Fili was playing for a half a dozen couples who were using the wooden sidewalk as an impromptu dance floor. The slim lad accompanying him with a hand drum looked vaguely familiar, even with the thick fringe of auburn hair falling into his eyes. Bilbo frowned, then shrugged. With that build they could as easily be a lass – or neither, as some young people were these days. Kili was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he’d gone to make his own entertainment, perhaps with the girl Bilbo had last seen him dancing with, a redhead even taller than him, who had been at Thorin’s workshop earlier in the day.

Bilbo took a long drink from the water bottle she’d gotten from the bar inside, then walked down the ramp to the water’s edge, past all the docked boats of the market until she came to a free berth.

‘What are you doing?’ Thorin asked as she sat down and began to untie her shoelaces.

‘The best thing for danced-out feet,’ Bilbo replied, pulled off her sweat-stained socks and sighed as she dipped her bare feet into the lake.

‘Take care that you don’t fall in, it’s too dark to fish you out if you do.’

‘Then you better not let me fall in the first place,’ Bilbo quipped back, and smiled as Thorin plopped herself down right next to her. She wriggled her toes in the cool water and sighed with deep contentment. ‘When did you say we need to leave tomorrow?’ she asked after a while.

‘That depends,’ said Thorin. ‘I’d like to ask you something,’ she went on, and there was a careful note to her voice that made Bilbo think she had perhaps been putting this off.

‘Go on,’ she said, and lifted her dripping feet up to the dock, wrapping her arms around her knees.

‘Would you,’ said Thorin, ‘like to meet my mother? I promised her I’d stop by for tea before we go. Or we can pick you up here on the way back, whichever suits you,’ she added quickly.

‘I wouldn’t want to intrude,’ Bilbo said carefully. ‘But since you asked,’ she added, seized by a sudden spark of mischief, ‘perhaps it would be a good idea. See if I still have an invite for the holidays when we’ve finished the tea.’ 

‘What do you mean?’

‘Let’s just say I haven’t always seen eye to eye with the parents of any prospective… others.’ Bilbo cleared her throat. ‘I’ll tell you sometime.’ She stretched out her bare toes and vinced when a muscle in the sole of her foot almost cramped. ‘I don’t think I’m up to any more dancing today, I’m afraid. Do you want to stay?’

‘Let’s call it a day,’ said Thorin. ‘You’re not putting them on?’ she added, clearly perplexed, when BIlbo tied her shoes together by the laces and got up.

‘Too much bother. Besides, it’s good for your feet to walk barefoot, haven’t you heard?’

‘In the summer, perhaps,’ Thorin said drily.

‘It’s still summer enough for that,’ BIlbo replied. The well-worn planks were smooth and pleasantly cool under her feet. ‘When I was a girl, I used to run barefoot all the time. I wish I still could.’

‘Well, I’m not stopping you. You wouldn’t listen anyway.’

Bilbo snorted. ‘Said the pot to the kettle.’

‘Don’t come complaining when you step on glass.’

‘I won’t. I’ll just make you carry me.’

‘You can try.’ But Thorin did not protest when Bilbo linked her arm to hers, and they made their slow way back to dry land without incident, glass-related or otherwise.

~*~

Mid-morning the next day they left Esgaroth and drove north. The shores of the Long Lake approached each other the further they came, until the lake tapered off into a single sharp tip where water had eroded away the rock in the space of countless years, the stream pouring into the lake over well-washed craggy steps, the waters curling into white foam in the pincers of slow-yielding stone. 

‘River Running,’ said Bilbo’s new map, and mile by mile, the road followed its course up into a wild, high country of greens and greys: the deep mossy shade of fir trees, the warmer tone of rolling pastures, the muted gun-metal colour of rocky outcrops, and the river glinting silvery between its steep banks. Mountains reared ever taller against the windswept sky, dark as storm clouds where the sun was behind them, until they turned a corner, following a bend of the river around a wooded ridge, and the vista suddenly opened up into a valley beneath a single solitary peak that stood apart from the rest, its grey dome rising to some three and a half thousand feet. 

Erebor, the Lonely Mountain of story and song.

The town of Dale stood sheltered between the two high spurs of the mountain’s roots, its white-washed houses twinkling bright against cold pine green of the forested slopes in the afternoon sun. Thorin, however, took a side road at the sign that said three miles to Dale, and drove on into the western foothills of Erebor.

Oakenshield Hall was less grand than its name: a squat, stolid house of grey stone shingled in black, built with its back against the westernmost spur of the mountain, where it commanded a wide view of the outlying lands. The tall woman standing on the doorstep could have been Thorin, some twenty years from now, for all that she was of a slighter build, but her sensibly short hair was the grey of the hills, and her hand, when she offered it to Bilbo, was gnarled like the branches of an old tree. The appraising look in the steel-blue eyes was no less than she had expected, and Bilbo held her head high, hoping her handshake was firm enough to disguise the nerves fluttering uneasily in the pit of her stomach.

‘Thank you for having me, Mrs. Oakenshield,’ she said.

‘You’re welcome, Miss Baggins.’ And while there wasn’t nothing so crass as a nod of approval, some of Bilbo’s nervous butterflies settled at the exchange.

And it made her glad to see her hostess wasn’t above accepting enthusiastic hugs, at least when they came from her grandsons.

‘I see you’ve forgotten to shave again,’ she said to Kili, and Bilbo definitely heard the older brother smother a laugh.

‘I’m growing it out, Grandma.’

‘That’s what you said last Christmas, yet I can’t tell if it's any longer.’

‘I’m afraid that’s a wasted argument,’ said Thorin while Kili sputtered. ‘Apparently it’s the height of fashion to look like a ruffian.’

‘A fine one to talk–’ she stopped suddenly, and stepped closer to hold Thorin at an arm’s length. ‘No, forgive me. You look good, my lass. I wonder why.’ She threw a sidelong glance at Bilbo, who held her face straight with an effort.

The spread set out in the low-ceilinged kitchen was perhaps a bit extensive for a simple afternoon tea, but also quite appropriate considering the long drive ahead of them. It was truly a shame that Bilbo couldn’t properly concentrate on appreciating the smoky savouriness of the sausage rolls or the cinnamon and honey topping the upside down apple cake.

For the first time she knew exactly what the few prospective, well,  _ prospects _ , she had managed to bring to any of the Baggins-Took family gatherings had felt like when faced with the third degree of the indomitable Adamanta Took.

‘What was it you said you did for living again, girl?’

‘I’m an editor… at a publishing house,’ said BIlbo, who hadn’t been called a girl for a good decade now. ‘It’s mostly children’s books,’ she elaborated without prompting, ‘or other things, too, as needed. I keep busy.’

‘And that’s worth your while, is it?’

What a strange question to ask, thought Bilbo. ‘It is, I’m sure,’ she said. ‘It does pay the bills, at any rate.’ But her laughter sounded flat even to herself.

‘That can be a worthwhile goal, if that’s what you’re content with, but some people–’ the blue eyes flashed briefly at Thorin’s direction– ‘want their work to be a  _ passion.  _ I wonder which sort you might be.’ The tinkle of teaspoon against saucer sounded too loud beneath the dark-varnished timbers holding up the ceiling.

The sort who contemplated cutting her own holiday short for fear of the mess others might make in her absence, Bilbo thought to herself. ‘I want to believe I’m the sort who wants to do the best possible job,’ she finally said. ‘Even if the circumstances leave something to be desired.’

‘Strange,’ said Thorin’s mother, and stirred what looked like a fifth spoonful of sugar into her tea. ‘You don’t seem like one to be held back by mere circumstance.’

‘Excuse me, but I do not think I can just up and–’ Bilbo nearly snapped.

‘How long did you say you’d known Thorin?’

‘What– I don’t–’ Bilbo floundered, unbalanced by the sudden about-turn. ‘Two weeks?’ And it shouldn’t have been a question, she knew. Her fingers tightened around the teacup as she breathed in, then out. ‘Two weeks and two days, to be precise.’

‘Sixteen days, all told,’ Mrs. Oakenshield repeated, ‘and yet you are the first to sit here and drink my tea in many, many years. The first Thorin has brought, at any rate.’ She sniffed. ‘So don’t tell me you’re above hasty decisions.’

‘I assure you that I’m quite old enough to have done any number of bad decisions, and so far, this one seems to be the exact opposite.’ BIlbo was glad Thorin was sitting next to her, so she didn’t have to see her face, for fear of losing composure. A warm hand squeezed  gently at her knee, and she glanced sideways out of sheer surprise. The soft smile was the exact opposite of the smirk she had been dreading, but no less distracting. Bilbo pointedly cleared her throat and poured herself more tea.

‘I understand you’re fond of music– considering,’ Mrs. Oakenshield said just as Bilbo had bitten into the teacake. She took a measured, deliberate sip from her cup, and swallowed slowly. If this is how she wanted to play it, then Bilbo had been trained by the best.

‘I met Thorin when Ravenhill was on tour, but I doubt that’s what you really want to ask me,’ she said.

There was a flash of amusement in the steely eyes. ‘Perhaps so. Do you play an instrument? Everyone in the family does.’

‘Not everyone, Mother,’ Thorin said quietly to her left.

‘Thank you, Thorin,’ her mother said drily, and let her hands rest on the tabletop, the twisted shape of her fingers clear against the dark grain of the wood. ‘I never had the time to learn.’

‘I’m afraid I’m but a listener,’ Bilbo interjected, ‘even if an appreciative one.’

‘Oi, that’s a load of bollocks!’

‘Kili!’

‘Fine, sorry, Grandma, pardon my French, et cetera, et cetera, but that’s complete nonsense she just said. She sings – and she was only one except Bofur to remember all the words to “The Man in the Moon” the other night.’

Mrs. Oakenshield looked at Bilbo over the rim of her teacup and lifted one eyebrow.

Bilbo shrugged carefully. ‘One song does not a singer make. I learned that one from my mother.’

‘I see. Does she travel a lot, your mother?’

‘When she was young, yes.’

‘Then perhaps that’s how the song came to you. It’s not old even in these parts, as I understand it.’

‘I reckon so.’ Bilbo couldn’t very well ask, now could she, with her mother three years in her grave. And something of that sentiment must have made it to her voice or her face, because Mrs. Oakenshield gave a tiny nod, her eyes holding her own for a brief moment.

‘Do  _ you _ travel?’ she asked.

‘I take walking holidays,’ Bilbo replied. ‘But usually no further than across the Channel. I’ve grown quite fond of Brittany, you see. Great trails, lovely landscapes, excellent food – you couldn’t really ask for more, could you?’

‘Perhaps.  _ Et est-ce que vous parlez français?’ _

_ ‘Mais oui, Madame,’ _ Bilbo grinned, and was surprised when her opponent suddenly laughed brightly.

‘Please,’ she said, ‘call me Fenja. The schoolchildren used to call me Madame.’

‘I didn’t know you were a teacher.’

Thorin’s mother nodded. ‘A thankless job at its worst, and incredibly rewarding at its best – much like yours, I would think.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘I have seen what excuses for writing gets printed these days.’ Her mouth twisted with distaste. ‘ _ Self-publishing,  _ they call it. There’s as much publishing in it as in the filth that gets scrawled on the bus stops.’

‘I wouldn’t be so quick to condemn,’ Bilbo said thoughtfully. ‘I’ve read quite a few lovely novels that didn’t come out through the traditional channels, and left unfinished many awful ones that claimed to be professionally edited.’

‘You make fair case, but can you prove it?’

Which was how Bilbo ended up listing her favourite indie romance and mystery authors to her – well, to call her a future mother-in-law might be a smidgen too hasty, yet, but there wasn’t really a proper word for the mother of your very new significant other, was there?

‘I don’t suppose it snows in Brittany,’ Fenja said as they were clearing out the table. Or rather were trying to, because when Bilbo had insisted on helping, she had insisted that she was a guest, and Thorin and the lads had done most of the work while they politely argued.

Bilbo blinked at the sudden non-sequitur. ‘No. I dare say it doesn’t. Not often, at least.’

‘It does here, every winter. It’s rather nice, if you like that sort of thing.’ She paused. ‘But you will be spending the holidays with family, won’t you?’

‘I’m sure my aunts and cousins can do without me for once.’ Bilbo nodded at the question she saw take shape before it got spoken. ‘Yes. It’s just me. And the cat, but he doesn’t quite count as a blood relative.’

‘Consider yourself invited, then. Come any day after winter solstice that suits you.’

Bilbo assured her that she would be happy to, and caught Thorin looking at her across the room with a small, secretive smile that made her heart go all aflutter in her chest.

~*~

‘That went well,’ said Bilbo as they drove off. ‘Considering.’

‘Considering what?’ said Thorin at the wheel.

‘Considering how well you and I first took off.’

Thorin snorted. ‘I am not my mother.’

‘I know. She’s much more polite. Yet…’ Bilbo trailed off. ‘I’m afraid she left me no choice.’ Thorin glanced sidelong at her, and Bilbo laid a hand on her arm, leaning closer. ‘I think,’ she said softly, ‘that I’m going to keep you.’

‘Because my mother approves?’

‘In spite of it,’ she replied, and Thorin laughed with her as the dark band of tarmac wound down south before them, a chance road no more, but one they had chosen to take.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for sticking with me until the end - I love each and every comment and kudos and hit ❤
> 
> And as you can see, this one has many seeds for further stories to grow from, but as usual, I won't promise _when_.


End file.
